Latest news with #ideas
New York Times
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- New York Times
This Easy Dinner Merges Histories (and Fish and Couscous)
Peter Frankopan's 'The Silk Roads' has been on my night stand for some months now. It's a hefty presence, nudging me whenever I reach past it for my phone and lighter sorts of entertainment. It's a book with such intellectual weight that it invites both eagerness and a sort of low-grade anxiety. There is something about reordering your entire view of world history at 9 p.m. that feels … ambitious. Recipe: Spiced Couscous With Fragrant Steamed Fish And yet I keep picking it up. Frankopan tilts world history eastward, and the ancient routes of Central Asia become the center rather than the periphery. He traces how these pathways carried not just luxury goods but ideas, religions and diseases, connecting far-flung kitchens and cultures long before we started talking about 'globalization.' Among all the accounts of silk merchants and military campaigns, I'm drawn to the ones of barley, wheat and millet, traveling in saddlebags across mountains and deserts. It's the kind of book that makes me ask questions that haven't occurred to me before. Who first decided to mix cardamom with rice, or cinnamon (originally from China) with tomatoes (from the Americas)? What possessed them? What were they looking for? Who first tasted the result and declared it good? We have a tendency to draw history in straight lines. We want clear origins, neat progressions, definitive end points. This came from there, traveled here, became this. But life is rarely that tidy, is it? Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Forbes
19-05-2025
- Forbes
GenAI Content Is Everywhere. That's Why Thought Leaders Must Go Deeper
Archaeologist working in field, carefully revealing ancient skull As thought leaders or emerging thought leaders, writing with AI is not just about using AI better. It's about making sure that our ideas still matter — and that they are ours. Generative AI makes it easier than ever to produce clean, competent text. In seconds, it can generate blog posts, social media captions, newsletters, and more. What once took hours can now be done in minutes. And yet, as I reminded participants, it takes more than expertise to resonate with an audience. Decent writing may fill space, but thought-leadership writing should fill minds. This distinction is more urgent than ever as AI makes surface-level content alarmingly easy to produce. One of the dangers of AI is that it encourages what I call 'headline thinking.' This happens when we let algorithms stitch together the most common phrases and concepts from the internet, leaving us with ideas that sound good but say little. For emerging thought leaders — people who aim to introduce, spread, and champion important ideas in service to their audience — this is a serious risk. If your thinking stays safe, generic, and frictionless, your writing may be indistinguishable from what AI produces. Worse, it may be indistinguishable from what hundreds or thousands of other professionals are already saying. That's why I challenged the Accelerator participants to go deeper. At this point in the session, I introduced a deceptively simple exercise: freewriting. For five minutes, I asked everyone to silence their inner critics, shut down their devices (except for the document they were writing in), and just… write. The prompt, which I clarified was only for humans, was this:'Write about why it is so important for you or your organization to show thought leadership. What's at stake? Why now? Why you?' As the timer began, the (virtual) room went quiet. No AI prompts. No structured outlines. No instant drafting tools. Just minds meeting blank pages. At first, the exercise seemed awkward to some. 'I felt like I had nothing new to say,' one participant shared later. Another confessed, 'Without AI, I realized how much I rely on having a structure handed to me.' But that was exactly the point. After our freewriting, something shifted. As we discussed what emerged, participants shared surprising discoveries. 'I ended up writing about something I never talk about publicly — my frustration with how slow change happens in my industry,' one said. Another found herself zeroing in on a niche, overlooked challenge her clients face — something she had never considered turning into content. This is what happens when we give ourselves space to think and write without shortcuts. Ideas that are deeper and more personal begin to surface. The easy clichés and conventional wisdom fall away. What's left is real. AI can be tremendously useful once you've done the heavy lifting of idea generation and clarity. It can help: But what it can't do — and what thought leaders must guard fiercely — is determine the what and why of your ideas. Only you know which hills you want to plant your flag on. Only you have lived your particular professional journey and can distinguish your thinking from that of rivals with more resources. Only you can bring the nuance, vulnerability, and conviction that makes writing memorable. One of the Accelerator participants put it like this: "AI can help me say something faster. But only I can figure out what I really want to say." If you want your thought leadership to rise above the AI-generated flood, try these strategies: AI is not the enemy of thought leadership. Used well, it can be a helpful collaborator, freeing us from rote tasks and enabling us to focus on the work that matters most. To be seen and heard as serious thinkers, AI must remain in the passenger seat — not the driver's seat. As I reminded the Accelerator participants, depth wins. In an age of infinite words, people are hungry for ideas that make them pause, reflect, and perhaps even change course. So go deeper. Give yourself permission to write badly in service of writing bravely. Freewriting is the way I began the actual writing of my book, Write Like a Thought Leader. I had outlined and researched and lined up my concept, but I hadn't actually started writing the manuscript. So I found a friend for a spontaneous round of freewriting via Zoom. You can do the same. Find what only you can say, and say it with clarity and conviction. AI can generate words. Only you can generate wisdom. That's why thought leaders must go deeper — they must have the ability to access their wisdom, bring it forth and articulate their gems of ideas that had been hiding beneath the surface.
Yahoo
18-05-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Baseball Needs More Young Adult Fans. Here's How to Get Them.
I asked my sports-savvy daughter what the game can do to attract her and her cohort. She offered five ideas.
Times
08-05-2025
- General
- Times
The ten slug-proof plants every gardener should know about
You know how people sometimes tell you that you should 'think outside the box'? When I hear this, I often try to do so but, of course, it's not quite so easy. The best 'out of the box' ideas arrive when you are doing something else such as a) driving or b) weeding or c) looking out of the window on a train. (Never forget that JK Rowling conjured up the Harry Potter plot line on a long train trip.) It only proves that daydreaming is not a waste of time (despite what multiple teachers wrote in my school reports). It is a pathway to ideas, inspiration and, in some cases, solutions. And the solution in this case has to do with slugs. I have
